On this Good Friday morning I sat with my dad outside a small bakery eating my first hot cross bun and drinking an iced coffee.
He started telling me about another baseball coach who recently played Air Force. The coach was struck by the military school. If you were to walk into their hotel on an away trip at 5:30 in the morning, you would find them in two's, each player with his accountability partner, studying. This is the schedule they must follow in order to accomplish all of their responsibilities--baseball, military training, and their studies (And to think I complained about school when I was in college!).
The coach reported that when the national anthem was played before the game, Air Force's team was called to attention and stood with their salute. Air Force's coach spoke to my dad's friend about the future some of these men would face. He takes seriously his job to prepare them for that future. Some of them could give their lives defending their country.
My dad teared up as he recounted this to me. Tears sprang to my eyes too. "It's right for us to feel this way," I said. It stirs our hearts when we see people living for something bigger than themselves to the point that they are willing to die for that something. I believe it stirs us because it echoes what is written on our hearts--what we are called to do (1 Corinthians 5:15).
It's why I cry every time I watch the movie Valkyrie. It's why I loved reading Through the Gates of Splendor and Bonhoeffer and why I wept as I watched today Do You Believe?.
This day marks history's ultimate example of sacrifice. I think stories move us because they reflect the Great Story.
Jesus, Son of God, in obedience to the Father, lay down His life, bore God's wrath, and faced death head-on. He drank the full cup. What love.
"Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command." John 15:13
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